SCMTME#1 Cont: Composing in DAWs

01/08/18

One thing I neglected to discuss in my last post was the exploration of DAWs as tools to scaffold composition. I really like this idea for stage 4&5, but also think it has potential for stage 6 too, since it allows students to focus on the sounds they make instead the way it looks.

Liz showed us quite a few composition scaffolds she had already tested, and the balance of structure, requirements students needed to meet, and given stimulus with open ended instructions and freedoms removes the blank paper syndrome and provides a 'safety' for students while also giving opportunity for creativity.

Rohan and I completed this task in a pair, but ended up changing the scaffold so that we ended up with this (excuse the dodgy looping of the bass):

Flex Pitch used to replicate the melodic line of All Star

In a classroom context, asking students to make a cover of a song they like using sounds from a movie or TV show could be an engaging task that helps them develop technical skills of manipulating sounds in their chosen DAW (we used flex pitch in Logic), as well as developing their aural skills as they replicate the pitch, rhythm and instrumentation.

I'm excited to try out using DAWs for composition on prac!